Take a first look at the massive, 43,000 square-foot farm at the Brooklyn Navy Yard

Brooklyn Grange, the rooftop farming operation that launched in Long Island City a couple years ago, celebrated its first harvest at its new site, a 43,000 square-foot rooftop farm in Brooklyn -- now the largest such farm in NYC.  

Located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the rooftop farm was financed in part by a $592,730 grant from the DEP's Green Infrastructure Grant Program. Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the farm to check out the crops, which include salad greens, rainbow chard, kale, basil, eggplant, cucumbers and ground cherries.

The new farm has an estimated annual yield of 20,000 pounds of fresh produce per year. But it's not all about veggies; the farm also includes two flocks of egg-laying hens and a commercial apiary comprising over thirty hives. The hives are expected to yield approximately 1,500 pounds of honey annually.

And there are auxilary environmental benefits as well. The farm has been designed to absorb more than one million gallons of rainwater per year, which they use to irrigate their crops. That's stormwater that would normally enter the New York City sewer system and contribute to sewer overflows and harbor pollution.

(via Gothamist)

Photos: Sam Horine / Gothamist